Two, or dual-sided, direct thermal printing of documents such as transaction documents and receipts is described in U.S. Pat. Nos. 6,784,906 and 6,759,366. In dual-sided direct thermal printing, the printers are configured to allow concurrent printing on both sides of thermal media or image elements moving along a feed path through the printer. In such printers a direct thermal print head is disposed on each side of the media along the feed path. In operation each thermal print head faces an opposing platen across the media from the respective print head.
In direct thermal printing, a print head selectively applies heat to paper or other media comprising a substrate with a thermally sensitive coating. The coating changes color when heat is applied, by which “printing” is provided on the coated substrate. For dual-sided direct thermal printing, the sheet media substrate may be coated on both sides.
In various industries, there is a plethora of information that is either desired or required to accompany an object such as a product or container thereof. For example, in the pharmaceutical industry, there is a plethora of information that must be dispensed with pharmaceuticals when such pharmaceuticals are delivered to a patient. Some of that information is printed on a label that is attached directly to the container for the pharmaceutical. In many instances, the size of the container is dictated more by the amount of information on the label than by the volume of the pharmaceutical. Likewise, additional information desired or required to accompany an object, such as a pharmaceutical, may be separately printed from a label accompanying the object requiring additional resources, and increasing the potential for misdelivery.